The Dashboard online Collection -- Select an index -- United Nations CSD CGSDI Ecological Footprint World Economic Forum ESI EEA Environmental Signals Eurostat TEPI Ecosistema Urbano Regional Performance Coastal Sediment Quality Index Dashboard METHODOLOGY Indicators for Decision-Making A Look into the Future Art & Culture? How can I help? What's missing?

Download the software: more features, faster access, free, and only 1 MB - less than 3 minutes with a 56K modem... New: printable manual!! Create your own Dashboard?

For the Millennium Review Summit, we offer the MDG Dashboard. For SD indicators, please consult the set of the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development Agenda 21 was at the origin of this Dashboard, presented also at the UN CSD-9 and the WSSD (with IUCN). You can download the "From Rio to Johannesburg" Dashboard here. Check also the City Development Index by UN Habitat & Joe Flood and the SIDS Dashboard with Vulnerability Indices

2004 edition of the UN CSD Dashboard for Europe

Have a closer look at China: IFPRI's dataset portrays China's regions - now available in Dashboard format.

The CGSDI "Strawman": a balanced set of economic, social and environmental indicators

... chosen by the IISD-based Consultative Group on Sustainable Development Indicators (CGSDI), and compiled by John O'Connor (Oconeco). From the same author: The Millennium Development Goals (MDG), WEHAB (Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture, Biodiversity) and Sub-National Demo Dashboards (the latter with few indicators but over 1,600 countries, regions and sub-regions, e.g. for China, Japan, Philippines etc- a truely impressive demonstration of the usefulness of regional indicators!).

The Ecological Footprint: the most successful "pure environment" index

See the website of Redefining Progress for more information, or download the Footprint Dashboard.

The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI)

... as presented at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos in January 2002, created by the Forum's Global Leaders for Tomorrow Environment Task Force, CIESIN, and Yale. The ranks in the following figures may differ marginally from the ESI original due to different computational methods employed. You can download the ESI Dashboard by simply pressing Control F5 in any running Dashboard. Note: the 2001 and 2002 editions are still available.

A closer look at the fourth pillar of Sustainable Development, Governance

... provided by Mark Kugler, World Bank Public Sector, and downloadable with Control F5 from the Dashboard.

Europe:

The European Environment Agency's EEA Environmental Signals 2001

The indicators presented here show major trends of the European Union's environment.
Note that the EEA has kindly offered these data for research use, but that the rankings calculated by the Dashboard software may not be identical with official EEA positions.

Eurostat's set Towards Environmental Pressure Indices

One of the most detailed indicator sets, specialised on pressures on the environment, and produced by the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat).
Note that Eurostat has kindly offered their data for research use, but that the rankings calculated by the Dashboard do not reflect official Eurostat positions.

Urban Environmental Performance Indices: Ecosistema Urbano 2002

One of the oldest and most successful examples of policy-driven and policy-driving indices, produced by Ambiente Italia for the Italian NGO Legambiente. You can download the Ecosistema Urbano Dashboard. See also the ranking of the most frequently used urban indicators.

Italy's Regional Environmental Performance Index

More recently, Ambiente Italia produced this index for 19 Italian regions published in Il Sole 24 Ore

Italy: Coastal Sediment Quality Index (CSQI)

An unusual application of the Dashboard to an index measuring the chemical and biological quality of coastal sediments in Italy's region Liguria. Special thanks to

Click here to open the JRC indicator theory web site Disclaimer: The content of this site does not necessarily reflect official views of the European Commission or the Joint Research Centre.

Why the Dashboard?

1. With the UN CSD and CGSDI indicator sets, we want to demonstrate that GDP, in its role as political lead indicator, could be replaced with a "Policy Performance Index" (PPI) that covers not only economic output, but rather the full range of important political themes, such as: social care and welfare, nature and environment, institutions, governance etc.
   We insist, however, that the indicators presented here are only examples, and that a final set needs to be developed by a democratic process involving many societal actors.
2. With the Dashboard software, we want to encourage indicator experts to confront their indices with similar ones, by using a common, very communicative presentation format. For this purpose, the Dashboard has an easy-to-use interface to Excel. Those who want to include maps at sub-national level are kindly asked to contact the author (there is an interface to MapInfo and ArcInfo, but it is currently not included in the software package).

The Dashboard is a free software, and will always remain freeware. Our intention is to promote the use of indicators, and especially to demonstrate that aggregating indicators to indices (sometimes called "Composite Indicators") can greatly enhance the usefulness of indicators. ETR

How can I help to promote the Dashboard?

If you have already successfully downloaded and installed the software, and are convinced that more people should know it…

… tell your friends and colleagues about it: click to send them a mail with the URL http://esl.jrc.it/envind/dashbrds.htm

… if you are an indicator expert (a statistician, an urban or regional planner etc.), check if your indicator set can be "translated" into a Dashboard

… if you have a website, add the following link to your index page:

select & copy the following five lines ...

... and paste them directly into the HTML source of your page
(using notepad, Composer, FrontPage, ..)

If you have had problems to install or run the software, please give us a - although the Dashboard should run under all versions of Windows, there may be surprises. We can regularly test the software with the English version of Windows NT, and the Italian Windows 98 version, but if you have problems with other versions, let us know. (back to top: )

What's missing?

Among others, the famous William Mercer Worldwide Quality of Living Survey - unfortunately, the data set is available only for single cities and for a significant amount of money. Since even the methodology seems not to be destinated for the public, it will remain one of the Great Mysteries of Index Cookers how, for example, Rome (in my humble opinion the most beautiful capital of Europe) could end up on the second-last rank for "Overall Quality of Life".

What else is missing? Most of the over fifty indicator sets that currently fill my harddisk - for example, this India demo. There is no lack of indicators, but most sets are experimental, not published, not official, etc. - there are plenty of good reasons not to publish an indicator set. However, if you have a Dashboard that is innovative, original and mature enough for publication, and you would like to see it in the Dashboard Collection, please contact me. (back to top: )